Starlight (Book 1)

Chapter Four

     Ro stirred awake. She couldn't bring herself to open her eyes. Her head was pounding and her ears were ringing. What happened? She tried to think back. Braden. Braden took her to the old mine. He told her about the Death Stones. He took her to the wall. Then he showed her the mushrooms. No not just mushrooms. A ring of them. A Fairy ring. She had been trapped. Her breathing became uneasy as she remembered crying for help. She felt a slight soreness in the back of her throat. Braden had just stood there. He did nothing to help her. How could he? How could he just stand there? Was he still here?

     After several minutes she was finally able to open her eyes. It was morning. Grams was going to kill her whenever she got back. She looked around for Braden, but didn't see any sign of him. Her eyes widened a bit because she didn't see the Wall of Death either. She wasn't in the same place. She was lying in the grass by a small stream of water. There were trees around her, but not very many. And when she sat up it only took her a millisecond to realize that she was completely naked aside from her ring.

     She immediately folded her arms across her bare chest. Had Braden done this? Had he done something to her? She took a moment to concentrate on her body. She didn't feel any different. She hadn't noticed any pain aside from the pounding in her head. She looked herself up and down. There weren't any bruises or scrapes. No indication that something had happened to her. She didn't know what to think or what to do. She couldn't walk back to town like this. She looked around for something to cover up with, but there wasn't anything. Nothing at all.

     She almost didn't find the courage to stand, but she didn't have any other choice. She couldn't just stay there. She had to get back to her Aunt and Uncle's house. She had to tell them and her grandmother what had happened. But more importantly she had to give Braden a piece of her mind. If this was his version of some kind of sick joke he was going to pay for it.

     "Braden?" She called out quietly

     Ro looked around frantically for any sign of movement. Nothing. Covering herself as best she could with her hands, she started to walk. She had no idea what direction to go. Nothing looked familiar to her. She just kept on walking trying her best to stay close to the trees and shrubbery, praying that there would be plenty of it when she finally saw someone.

     Ro finally saw what looked like a house in the side of a small hillside. She had seen those kind of houses before on TV, but this one looked like something out of middle earth. She had to think about how to approach it and what she would say to the people inside once she got the courage to do so. She took a deep breath. Why was this happening? She started towards the hill house slowly; creeping from tree to tree. She watched where she stepped being careful not to step on anything sharp with her bare feet which were now completely filthy.

     Ro shot her head up to look at the house. She was close now, but she wished that she wasn't. She heard people stirring inside. They were about to come out. She pressed herself against a tree. Her eyes focused on the door. She watched as it opened and as three people walked out of it. She thought the way they were dressed was odd. They looked like they walked out of the middle ages. The woman was wearing a dirtied white dress made of a thin fabric that caught the sunlight. She was so thin. Her dark hair was pinned up in braids and she looked to be around Ro's age, maybe a few years older. The other two were very tall and covered with dark grey hooded cloaks. She couldn't tell anything about them except for the pants they wore which were tattered and ripped. She could only assume that they were men. Ro looked back at the woman. She could tell that she had been crying from the tear streaks that cut through the dirt on her cheeks.

     Ro took a deep breath. They were close enough to hear her, but she had to work up the nerve to get their attention. The girl was upset for some reason. Was it those men in the cloaks? Had they hurt her in some way? She watched as one of them walked around the side of the house to what looked like a stable. The other grabbed the girl by her upper arm as if preventing her from running off. They waited there as the other one pulled a big black horse out of the stable and mounted it bare back. He rode up to the other two and began to speak. Ro could hear him just fine, but they were speaking a language that she didn't understand.